The Monsters Come
by AlessNox
Summary: A future dystopic AU. I figured out the structure. It begins with a 221b. Each chapter is 221 words longer then at one point you switch directions and each one is shorter by 221 words until the closing 221. I'm using b as the last word at the turn around point for convenience. Hope it works!
1. 221B

The wind were blowin' the dust round and round in spirals on the roadway. No one dun driven down that road for most of the day. No need to come this way no more. Not since the skyway twas built. Then those as had not gone up done gone down by the river. No need to cut across the prairie fields. Grassflats never was a big place, even in the time before when people spread across the land lookin' for someplace new to call their own.

Now it twer the cities in the sky where everyone was headin'. That and off the planet complete, if they had the money fur it. Twas only dirtfeet like us as still lived on farms out in the prarielands. Dirtfeet, and crazies, and the Earthers who were just another form of crazies.

Ma and John and me lived on a farm that once was my grandpas. One day, John was walkin' down the road, headin' out to the cowfield when he saw a black mass lying by the side of the road. He twernt quite sure if it were a calf, or a dog. Maybe it was a deer fallen down dead in the midday heat, 'cept they didn't have no deer out there, and even if they did, no way it would be black.


	2. 442C

Now, John twernt like me. He was monsterous smart. Gone were the days when every child had a paid education. My ma done remembered it. She had a stack of books handed down from her sister who made it all the way to high school 'for the change. Ma made sure we all knew how to read and figure. She said people will skin you alive if you can't count your money yourself.

But John knew lots more than countin'. He had learned himself all the bones and muscles in the body from an old anatomy book for he was seven, and he made friends with the Earther botanist down in Clearwater who lent him a skypad and a library subscription in exchange for huntin' up rare weeds and plants. Old Mam Stamford said as he was the smartest one in the whole county, and she should know as her son Mike done gone downriver to the city and become a doctor. But besides bein' smart, John were curious, and if it were a dead dog, he was like to take it in the shed and cut the body open for to see the muscles there himself, as he had a powerful desire to become a doctor too.

He went over to the black thing lying in the road thinkin' it to be a bag or a coat as someone had dropped off the back of a carrytruck as drive past sometimes in the middle of the night. So he got a stick and lifted up the edge, tossing it aside, expecting to find a bag of trash or old clothes. He were surprised instead to find that it were a man.

The man were robed all in silver-black with skin as pale as the sky. He lay there, a tangle of long, thin limbs half-starved, his nose straight, his features gaunt, lips a pale pink, and he had a head of shiny black curls, like a poodle. He was too pale to be a workman from town, too clean to be a crazy, and his clothes were too city to be an Earther. But no matter what kind of man he might turn out to be, he looked as to be a dead man since he weren't movin' at all.

John nudged the body with his shoe. It moved a bit, and then rolled back down so he knelt down slowly and reached out a hand to put in front of his face as to see if there were any breath. He stretched out a finger and laid it on the man's lips to see as they were warm or cold.


	3. 663D

John touched the pale man's lips and they weren't warm nor cold. He was about to reach around and check his pulse, when the man sucked in a breath. John jumped back then and ran down the path as quick as lightning toward home, yellin' for Ma as he passed through the gate.

I heard this story secondhand, mind, as I wasn't there at the time. I was miles away at the house of my best girl, Clara. She is the prettiest girl in four counties, and so it can be excused that I preferred to spend my free time guarding her from the unworthy whenever I could. But when I returned that night, and found the strange creature piled on the couch near the fireplace, I took Johnny out back and had him tell me the story from the beginning.

He yelled for Ma to bring the medkit and a tarp as he went out back and got some wooden poles from the toolshed. We were poor, but we had bought a medipad to test for fevers and such because doctors were few and far between in the prairielands. John put the sensor in the man's ear, and it said that he were alive, though under temperature and dehydrated. John made a makeshift cot, and they carried him into the house.

The man were not conscious, so they couldn't give him water, but they took off his outer clothes, and wrapped him in a thin blanket, placing him near the fire to keep his temperature up. He was lucky. If it had been winter, he might have froze before anyone noticed he was there. If it were full summer, then he would have dried out dead, and only the vultures would have noticed him. Being as it were Spring, it was cool, though that Spring were unusual dry.

Ma started out making some chicken soup as she is of the opinion that there ain't no malady that can't be healed by honey tea and a cup of hot chicken soup. John sat at the table with his datapads looking up all that might be wrong with the man.

Now you may be wondering why we did the things that we did. You might think that he could be a plague carrier, or a fugitive from the law that needs be handed over to someone to keep us safe. All I can say is that, yes we thought of it, but neither thing seemed as important as the fact that this were a man who was in a bad way and needed some help. As we could easily imagine being in the same boat as he, we did what we could to help him get back on his feet so as he could go on his way.

Ma had just about finished the soup, and Johnny had narrowed things down to the top eight maladies as might be afflicting the man, when he finally woke.

"Water," was the first word that he said. Ma poured some from the pitcher into a glass, and Johnny took it out to the man, lifting his head up as he carefully helped him drink.

Ma stood on the edge of the couch, hovering, looking to see if there was something she might do to help, but John were holding him. He had an arm around the man to hold him steady as he gave him a sip. His hands were steady as rock. Not a drop spilled farther than the man's chin.

I hovered in the doorway. I'm not the sort for a sickbed, no patience, no skill. John was born to it. He were as compassionate as a baby's mother. He really was too good for his circumstances, I've always thought. Even so, we were happy to have him.

The man started to cough, and John patted his back, making sure that his airways were clear before putting away the water and lowering the man down.


	4. 884E

The dark haired man coughed, and John lay him down on the couch. At first he sighed, rolling down on the pillows, boneless as a cat. Then his eyelids opened and he sat up stiff and straight, his eyes bulging out of his head like quail eggs. He looked to the right, and to the left, and then up at the ceiling.

"What? Where? Who?" he said before pushing himself up to his feet. He swayed for a second like a sapling in a strong wind, and then he began to fall.

John reached out and grabbed him, lowering him back on the couch and saying, "Whoa there. You just got up. Take it a bit slower."

The man looked at John and said, "Accent, North American with traces of Anglia. Walls and ceiling made of real wood, pine, but you obviously couldn't afford the cost. You're a ground rat."

"I beg your pardon?" John said pointedly staring at the man his hands still gripping his shoulders.

"Let me up!" the stranger said pushing himself to his feet again. John stood beside him ready to catch him if he fell, but he steadied himself. "It feels strange here," he said. "Something wrong with the gravity." Then he started to walk straight toward me. John put a hand on his shoulder to check him, but he shook it off. "Let me out. I must see!" he said, and charged ahead.

He rushed past me going through the kitchen and out the front door with John quick on his heels. Ma and I followed letting the screen door slam behind us. We was ready to chase him down if he were running crazy, but he was right outside standing stock still on the front walk looking straight up at the full moon as if he'd never seen one before. John rushed over to stand beside him case he should fall again.

The air was cool that night but not cold. There were crickets chirping in the grass and the occasional whippoorwhil calling. The man stood still as if he were frozen, as if he were carved from stone.

We all just stood there watching him, as if he were a cobra ready to strike. It must have been a full minute before anyone moved. It were the man who spoke first.

"I'm on Earth," he said.

"Spot on!" John said, "Brilliant deduction that. You should make a career of it."

The man turned his head and stared down at John. He was almost a full head taller than him, and as thin as he was he looked even taller. "Who are you?" he asked wrinkling his brow.

"John H. Watson at your service," he said reaching out his hand. The other man stared at it as if it were some exotic sea creature as he didn't want to touch. After a moment John put his hand down. "And would you be so kind as to tell us your name? Unless you would prefer for us call you ' _hey you!_ ' ."

"No," he said, "I would prefer that you did not. My name is Sherlock."

"Sherlock? No last name, just Sherlock?"

"You asked what to call me. I told you. That is all that you need to know."

"Ah..well, now that you've ascertained your location, are you ready to go back inside and rest? Maybe have a bit of Ma's delicious chicken soup?"

"Ascertained? Why that word? It's archaic. What sort of primitive world have I landed myself on. Those drugs must have been stronger than I thought."

"Drugs?" John said frowning. "Is that how you ended up lying half-dead on the side of the road." The man turned his body half around and locked his eyes on John. John looked right back. "Come inside," he said.

He nodded for us to go ahead, so Ma and I went back in. I looked back through the door watching them standing side by side. The man was looking up at the moon again. The fabric on his close fitting suit shimmered in the moonlight. He looked odd, like he were an elf out of one of those fantasy books that John always read. John were starin' at him as if he were icecream. His mouth were open and his eyes round in wonder. And it weren't surprising. John was always attracted to everything strange and different and this man was certainly different than anything we had ever seen.

Ma poured up a bowl of soup and told me to have a bite. I sat waiting for the steam to part, glancing over to the door as I waited for them to enter. John swung the door open with his hand and the man come in hesitant like. He looked around the room, staring down his nose at it, as if it were a pigs pen.

"Why don't you have a bite," John said. "It looks as if you could use a bit of sup."

"Dine here? I've never even stood in such a domicile before."

"Then you've probably never tasted a homecooked meal." He pulled out a chair for the man, who glared at it before sitting down on it. Then Ma put a steaming bowl of soup in front of him.

"Go on now," Johnny said. "Eat!"


	5. 1105F

Sherlock looked at the soup suspiciously as if he thought it were poison, so I started eatin' to show him it was good. He lifted the spoon to his mouth and stared at it for a good ten seconds before taking a taste. Then he took another, and another until the whole bowl was done.

Ma turned away to hide her grin, but Johnny smiled wide. Ma made the best chicken soup in the county, and everyone knew it.

"Want some more?" Ma asked, and he nodded.

Johnny smiled at the man, and I could tell then that John were sold on him. You see, as well as liking things that are different, he also likes people that are smart and have good judgment, and anyone as likes Ma's soup must have good judgement. He finished and pushed the bowl away looking of a clearer head as we had seen him since he woke. He looked back at Johnny and they stared at each other for a bit before Johnny shook his head and went to finish his soup.

The man who'd named himself Sherlock looked around the room and said, "This place is deep in the rural farmlands of the North American continent. Given the angle of the moon at this time of year, I suspect that we are lower than he 40th parallel. The biome has sparce trees and wide grasslands. Thus the Great American Plains."

"We're in Grassflats," Johnny said.

"I just told you that."

"No, I mean that's the name of the town."

"Why would I care what the name of this desolate place is? What I wish to know is how exactly I got here. Those must have been some pretty heavy drugs Ehnda gave me."

"You took drugs?" John asked. "Are you sick?"

"Not in the way that you're thinking. Although modern society is a form of sickness when it is as twisted as it is now. Self-medication is often the only way to endure it."

"So," John said a frown forming on his face," You're just a drug addict."

"I'm not 'just' anything."

"Then who are you, and why are you here?"

"I could ask the same of you? Why is a person as perceptive as you seem to be stuck in this lowly backwater."

"Hey, this is my home!"

"You can't possibly be disturbed that I called this place a backwater. What else could it be called? I've been on asteroids that are more civilized than this place. This is the furthest place from civilization."

"Asteroids? Have you been in space then?" I asked, excitement getting the better of me. The man rolled his eyes. He reminded me of Clara when I asked her why she weren't a model. Johnny glared at me as if I'd spilled the fact that none of us had ever been near a spaceport. Well, Johnny might have when he were a baby.

"You said I was perceptive?"

Sherlock turned toward him. "Of course. You've rightly perceived that my injuries were mostly superficial, and you've treated my dehydration with water and a warm broth. I'm feeling much better now, thank you. And although most people would have seen a stranger and called an authority, you rightly deduced that I did not wish my whereabouts to be known. You made the choice to let me walk freely among your family, but you are staying close, because you haven't yet assessed my level of threat. You are hovering, keeping yourself between me and them. A wise precaution as I have been trained in the martial arts, although I suspect that you might have the advantage due to your knowledge of the environment, and the fact that the gravity is a little heavier here than I'm used to. Also, ever since I mentioned not wanting to be found, you have been sitting forward in your chair, ready to stand quickly and restrain me if I make any adverse movements. A wise precaution given I am a stranger and a complete unknown to you and your family. So yes, I would call you perceptive."

"Well... That..."

"Was annoying, yes I know?"

"I was about to say amazing! You picked all that up just by looking?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "You're not offended?"

"By what? You being smart? I'd say you were the perceptive one. Do city folk get offended when you say things like that?"

"Oh, you have no idea!" He said and grinned. Johnny grinned back.

Ma turned from the stove then and wiped her hand on her apron. "Johnny, why don't you find a place for our guest to sleep. It's late, and he must be tired. Best we deal with the rest come morning."

"Yes, Ma. I'll put him in my room."

The man raised his eyebrow again but didn't object as Johnny showed him the facilities, and put down new sheets for him. Johnny came back to the kitchen then. Ma said that Sherlock seemed an alright sort, but Johnny was skeptical. He went and got the hunting rifle out of the shed and hung it over the fireplace where Gramps had used to keep it before Ma had banished it citing statistics of accidental deaths. He sat on the couch, and told the two of us to latch our doors that night.

I am a heavy sleeper, so I woke late to find that they'd gone. "Off to get news", Ma said. They came back later with new clothes and seafood for dinner. Seems the stranger planned to stay a while, and Johnny didn't seem to mind. As I said, Johnny likes things as are strange or different, and none were as strange as Sherlock were. No indeed.

I called in sick from work, but I had to tell Clara what was about. That was when Ma pulled me aside. "Don't go spreadin' tales about the stranger where others can hear," Ma said. "Trouble has ears, and sure as rain someone will come asking for him. This is William, your brother John's cousin come to visit." She knew I'd tell Clara anyway so she made me get her promise as well. Brother Johnny was my half-brother, born in London 'fore the riots that caused my Pa to flee. That time was a mystery to us, so no one questioned when an odd relative came to our house to stay.

It seemed everyone wanted to see him, though it were odd that no one had seen him arrive. Even so they were the talk of the town, my brother Johnny and his tall, pale cousin William come from France.


	6. 884B

Despite starting off distrusting each other, John and Sherlock soon were thick as thieves. Seems that Sherlock had a liking for anatomy as well, and he enjoyed looking at John's drawings of dead things saying that he had precious little experience with animals having only seen dead humans. I thought that was creepy as sin, but my brother just smiled wider and took him down to visit the butchers.

T'wasn't till late that evening over supper that Sherlock finally explained why he was here. Seems there was this mysterious death as happened at a party he was at that got him all curious, and he, like John, can't stand to leave a mystery lying.

He was scheduled to go back up to New London Space station after visiting his parents in England, and so he decided to go to New York with a nodding acquaintance just to spice things up before going home. He saw the symphony, and the second violinist invited him to a swanky party afterward. He said that he thought the man just wanted to get a "legover" whatever that is, but he was an excellent musician and Sherlock was bored, so he went along.

The party was full off blobs and swells fawning over the talent. He said there was so much ice on one woman's fingers and neck that she could've bought our whole state with it! The man he came with got annoying, so he ducked into a back room and found, to his surprise, that there was a dead body in it.

The man were a rich blob, and he was just sitting there with his eyes wide open and a look of shock on his face. Sherlock checked his breath, and he had none. He was just dead. There was a glass of water on the counter before him, and a pad which was open to a woman's personal blog.

He said he thought the man might have been poisoned so he stuck his finger in the water to taste it, but it was fine. I thought that he sounded a right idiot and John agreed. After looking carefully at the man, he pulled out his phone and called the police.

The party fell flat after that, and the police were idiots, he said. They accused him of killing the man though he had called the police and he was unarmed. They accused him of painting the word revenge on the wall even though he had no paints, and the painter was clearly left handed and taller. Also, they trampled on the foot marks on the rug refusing to listen when he told them that he had deduced that the man who'd done the deed was a tall man with size 42 feet and had come in dressed as a waiter. By the time they were done, everyone else was gone and he was stuck in New York with no place to stay and a bar on his visa saying that he couldn't go off world until the case was solved. Knowing how stupid the New York policemen were, he decided to solve the murder himself.

The blob was a big name preacher from out West. He and his brother ran that new Church of the Lord's Salvation. You know the one where the men all share wives? The blog that he was reading when he died was from his latest wife, Lily that he and another Elder had married just two years before. I remember seeing the wedding photos. She was thin, blond, and really pretty. She was also only seventeen, and there were consent issues about it, but since her father had said it was okay, they'd gone along. It blew up again a year later when her death was ruled a suicide. There was all kinds of mess on the news about how the young women of the church had been raped by multiple men and degraded, and they claimed that this had led to Lily's suicide. The church argued that she had always been clinically depressed, and that she had sinned by killing herself instead of trusting in The Lord's guidance. One interview of her grieving father quoted him as saying that she had always been a happy child, and that he regretted letting the church bully him into making her marry. He retracted the interview later, so nothing came of it, but most agreed that little Lily had got a bum deal of it all.

Curious about the it all, Sherlock snuck on the dead man's private train car hoping the find the truth of the church and their practices. They had found him, beat him, and tossed him off the train in a very unchristian-like manner, and he'd staggered down the road looking for help until he'd collapsed outside our place. Johnny asked him then, "What did it say on the dead girl's blog?" And his eyes glinted as he told him that he'd memorized it all. It were a poem written the night before her death. It said:

 _ **When the lights go out, that's when the monster's come.**_

 _ **My body broken, they come then for my mind.**_

 _ **If you were with me, we'd find a way to win.**_

 _ **But without you, I am alone, and pained, and blind**_ _ **.**_


End file.
